As if nurtured

“From the fallen log,
A sapling grew.”

Residue / Our Pride

I was toldthere were regrets,sadness over the thingsgone sour. Still to this dayit’s never been confirmedto my faceby you, the one concerned. I am determinedto maintainit will always bea little too late. As it is, your stupid goodbye gift –I’ve thrown it well away. — It might be pre-birthday angst, hormones or summer-fuelled heat, but

Palette of an overcast spring day

Seen from the poet’s loft:Red London bus, double-decker,then a postal van.Grassy yards where in the bedsTulips, bluebells, wilder forget-me-notsNow show. A man in puffy jacket,fluorescent against ground greyfar away.A neighbour shakes a sheetup to the washing-line. Pigeons, magpies, parakeets,finches, robins, full-bodied crowsfrequent the rooftiles,Conifer,Wooden fence below. Some say on such a dayThe only colour to

On the secret beach

When we’re not thereOr if we arethe wavesdraw up resolve To putter out on shore. Great energy, momentumDissolves in frothy white.The rest draws backto charge on blue To roll a course infinite. — After two years of serious COVID-anxiety, I flew to Mauritius. In the two weeks there I planned to write, read and exercise.

Out of Office

Follow BQ on instagram (@beadedquillwrites) and Facebook. Sign up for occasional emails from the poet’s desk on the website homepage. Find BQ’s books for sale via Blurb, including Jangle between Jangle, a collection of verse written while jangling to-and-fro during the London commute.

New Years, New Times

Necessary Work Types of Necessary Work: Getting up. Going to work. Eating breakfast; taking meds. Watching for my eye to mend. Watching as the candle burns. Letting go to say goodbye. Waiting. Letting a breeze into the room. More Types of Necessary Work: Devising shapes with pens and Filling lines. New fonts embossed on diary

Having accomplished

There is that lull Where you can’t unhook from sinkhole hours lost to nothing with nothing to show for it. Having completed no task, cursory to dos eating, basics, coffees, two evening closes in and mad-desperate panic of IS THIS ALL YOU LEAVE? will be your watching gong of dervish disappointment. 17/05/2020 —With a book

Another correct map

From the tube station, exit left to the High Road. Pass the fruit and veg stand. They are already selling daffodils and the asparagus looks fresh. Turn up the High Road, cross, and cross, to where the bicycles stand. Stop. Turn ahead. Wait for a break In traffic. (I have seen people and cyclists hit.)

A correct map of 29 Columbine Road

would include the corner honeysuckle hedge and two houses with high walls. Not ours, at first. When did it change? A pink hibiscus in the corner bed is where the hiding-place might be. Two white-yellow oleanders each side of the gate, their seeping white sap not safe. The wet path, too, when it rains the

Bump in the road

Normally reliable suffered a rare failure, taking over on the second day Before grinding to a halt. We’ve experienced an anomaly which made shutdown a precautionary measure. It brought a premature end. It’s crazy: The media and everything. When I was in high school, as part of an English literature exam we were given a